In lessons 1 and 2, you learned some greetings, the first fourteen letters of the Persian Alphabet, and how to spell several words with those letters. You also learned syllable stress in Persian words.

In this lesson, you will learn more about casual and formal speech, the next nine Persian letters, and more about short vowels in Persian.

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Hassan :

‹bad nistam, mersi. va to?›“Not bad, thanks. And you?”

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Mohamad :

‹man xeyli xubam.›“I'm very good.”

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Explanation

Mohamad and Hassan are using a very casual style of speech because they are close friends. “Mamad” is a common nickname for people named Mohamad. “Hassani” is a common nickname for people named “Hassan”.

In any language, speakers use various levels of formality in various social settings. For example, an English speaker in a formal setting may use proper grammar, pronounce -ing clearly (i.e., so that "walking" does not sound like "walkin'"), may choose formal or technical words (e.g. sodium chloride rather than salt and child rather than kid), and refrain from saying ain't, but the same person could violate some or all of those rules in an informal setting.

In Persian, several speech patterns are used to raise or lower the level of formality. One general rule in the Persian formality system is that referring to an individual with a plural pronoun and/or plural verb indicates respect for that individual. In polite Persian conversations, it is therefore customary to use the plural pronoun شما ‹šomâ› to when speaking with a superior or someone whom one has just met, and to use the singular pronoun تو ‹to› only when talking to friends, family members, and the like.

The Persian letter ﻉ ‹’eyn› represents the sound [ʔ], i.e. the glottal stop in the middle of “uh-oh” in English. Traditionally, as well as in UniPers it is transcribed as ‹’›. Its name sounds something like the English word “main”, but beginning with a glottal stop instead of an m. The top loop sits on the baseline. When it is the last (or only) letter in a word, its lower loop hangs below the baseline. When another letter follows it, it has a different form.

The Persian letter غ ‹qeyn› represents the sound [ɣ], that is, it is produced by placing the back part of the tongue against the soft palate and vibrating the vocal cords while pushing air from the lungs over the middle of the tongue.

The top loop sits on the baseline. When it is the last (or only) letter in a word, its lower loop hangs below the baseline. When another letter follows it, it has a different form.

The Persian letter ق ‹qaf› is pronounced like غ ‹qeyn›, i.e. like [ɣ]. The small loop sits on the baseline and the tail, when present, hangs below the baseline. Like other Persian letters with tails, the tail is only written when no other letter follows.

آقا

←

آ

ق‍

‍ا

←

آقا

‹âqâ›

‹â›

‹q›

‹â›

As shown on the right, the letter ﻕ ‹qaf› combines with the letter that follows, as in آقا ‹âqâ› (“Mr., sir, gentleman”).

Writing practice

Get out a pen and paper and practice writing ف ‹fe› and ق ‹qaf›.
Remember to write from right to left and to keep the base lines even.

The Persian letter ک ‹kaf› sits on the baseline. The slash on top ( / ) is written after the connected strokes of the word, along with the dots in any of the word’s dotted letters. Its name sounds a bit like the English word “cough”.

The name of this letter "nun" is pronounced rhyming with "noon" and not "nun". Note the difference between ن nun and ﺏ be, in be the dot is below the curve and in nun it is above. The shape of nun is also narrower than the "be, pe, se, te" group of letters.

نان

←

ن‍

‍ا

ن

←

نان

‹nun›

‹n›

‹â›

‹n›

The Persian word نان ‹nun› (“bread”) is shown on the right. Note that the written form uses ا ‹â› , indicating that the word should be pronounced as ‹nân›, but in standard Persian, ان ‹ân› is usually pronounced ‹un›, including the word آن ‹un› (“that”).

Writing practice

Get out a pen and paper and practice writing ن ‹nun›.
Remember to write from right to left and to keep the base lines even.

In this lesson, you learned ..., the next seven letters of the Persian Alphabet, and how to spell several words with those letters from right to left. You also learned about syllable stress in Persian words.